Black and White and Cute All Over

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Welcome to our final day of product reveals and projects for our first release! The store will open tomorrow and everything that we’ve been showcasing will go up for sale at 10AM ET.

Let’s dig into today’s products!

Katie’s Cuties: Panda Stamps & Dies

Everybody needs a little cuteness in their lives! The Katie’s Cutie’s collection of stamps brings you just that. This adorable panda bear is ready to be stamped and colored. The matching branch is the perfect place for him to hang out. Color this cutie with your favorite coloring method, such as colored pencils, watercolors, or markers! Try pairing this cute Panda with our BotaniCuts Bamboo dies!

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BotaniCuts Bamboo Die

The BotaniCuts collection is a series of stand alone dies for cutting various botanical designs. The BotaniCuts Bamboo set consists of two different sizes of bamboo shoots, plus lots of leaves for creating a layered look. The two shoots are sized perfectly for A2 cards. Stack a few shoots for a simple design, fill your card front to create a jungle, or create a frame! Keep it simple by cutting them from colored cardstock, or have fun experimenting with your favorite coloring method, such as ink blending, watercolor, markers, and more!

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To aid in your planning and list making, below you will find the prices for today’s products.

• Katie’s Cuties: Panda 3″ x 4″ stamp set – $7
• Katie’s Cuties: Pand die collection – $11
• BotaniCuts Bamboo die collection – $19

Now I’m excited to show you some projects using these new products!

For my first card, I watercolored a couple of the pandas and branches from the set. They’re just hanging out, munching on their bamboo. 🙂 The background was done by sponging some Distress Oxide inks, and then spritzing with water.

TIP: Pandas are black and white, but to make your colored images more interesting, add highlights and shadows using other colors. Just like in the real world, black is never just black, and white is never just white! If you look closely here you can see that the white portions has subtle gray/blue and yellow shading, while the black areas have lighter gray, and also a bit of blue!

My next card was not created by me! As I said in the sneak peek of this set, the images were based on drawings by my daughter Katie. She made this card for you today, using the panda she helped design! Can I just say that I’m excited to have finally converted one of my family members over to the dark side! 😀 I think she did a great job on this card. She created a little jungle for the panda using the new BotaniCuts Bamboo die, which were sponged with some Distress Oxide inks and also spritzed with a bit of gold shimmer mist. The panda was colored with colored pencils.

My next card uses that sweet panda paired with the Fir & Foliage No. 1 stencil to create a tree-top home for him. I cut an oval window from a cardstock panel to create a space for my scene. Then I perched him on the branch from the set, and added a sentiment from the Sentiment Suite: Thinking of You set. I used the Fir & Foliage stencil around the edges, sometimes turning it at an angle to get the areas of the tree where I wanted them. The panda was colored with Copic markers.

One last panda card for you! This one was colored with colored pencils and nestled in some bamboo, which was watercolored. I wanted to create a fun background for this card, so I sponged some polka dots. I used one of my small finger blending sponges, which worked perfectly! They almost look furry…perfect to pair with the panda. The sentiment here is a combination of the sentiment from the panda set, paired with a sentiment and some dies from the Sentiment Suite set.

Now for something a little different! The BotaniCuts Bamboo die can definitely be used for more than just cute projects. It can also be very elegant. Here I used the bamboo die to emboss my front card panel. I ran them through my diecut machine with an embossing mat several times across a cardstock panel, then sponged over them with some Oxide inks. Then I diecut the bamboo from black cardstock, and cut the leaf details from gold shimmer cardstock. The sentiment is from the Sentiment Suite: Thinking of You set, stamped onto a die from the matching die set, and heat embossed with gold.

One more project using the BotaniCuts Bamboo that’s more on the elegant side – this time combined with one of the sentiments from the Comforting Commands set. The two sizes of bamboo shoots in the die set are sized just right to fit on an A2 card so that you can create a pretty frame. I did just that here and surrounded the pretty “Be still…” sentiment. I cut the bamboo from green cardstock, then just sponged some ink to add a bit of shading. I also added some gold to the scored details with a gold pen. The inside is finished off with the matching sentiment from the Comforting Commands set and a few more bamboo shoots.

Well, you have officially met all of the products for our very first release! Now you can greet today’s products with a comment, and a chance to win…

• Comment here on the blog for one entry (one comment per person)
• Comment on our guests’ blogs for more entries (one comment per person, per blog)
• Comments close at Midnight ET on Thursday, April 25
• Winners will be posted at 7am ET on Friday, April 26th here on the blog

A note about tomorrow

Tomorrow is the big day! The products will go live at 10am ET in the shop! We have decided that in an effort to make everything go as smoothly as possible, we will open the storefront at 7am ET – the same time that a blog post will go up here on the blog. The products however, will be marked with a “coming soon” label and you will not be able to add them to your cart. You will be able to take a look around, get familiar with our site, create an account, etc. As advertised, the “coming soon” label will be removed at 10am ET and you will be able to shop!

And now for a special shout-out to our guests today! Click on the images to visit their blogs and see what they’ve created with today’s products! Leave them a comment for an extra chance at winning that gift card!

Thank you SO much for joining me this week! I hope you had as much fun as I did! And I hope to see you back here tomorrow for the big day! A post will go up here